Cross-Platform Development: Challenges & Opportunities

Creating
one app that works on all platforms is quite a tempting endeavour.
Adjust it to every platform you plan to cover, and to all devices you
want to cover, which takes much less time than going native anyway,
and there you have it! Right? Not really.

If
the cross-platform was that much universal, native development would
have gone out of business. Yet software owners thoughtfully launch
apps crafted with PhoneGap, and keep their users more than satisfied.
User groups can have the choice between iOS and Android as just a
personal preference. They may have an Android smartphone beside them
on the table, yet they'd prefer to use an iPad to access the same app
sitting having a lunch in a café. Thus, the multiplatform is a good
choice for those who know its pros and cons, its challenges and the
opportunities it offers.

Opportunity:
Reduced costs, less time required, and unified marketing. The obvious
pro that outweighs many cons taken together.

Challenge:
Since mobile platforms are completely different, from typical
navigation controls to general philosophies, use the correct design
approach. Great designs must be natural
for each covered platform – not identical.

Opportunity:
See whether PhoneGap is a good solution for your project. It's one of
the most widespread technologies for cross-platform development,
makes use of JavaScript/HTML5 development tools, which allow your
developers to do the job fast and easy, with average code reuse
approaching 97-99%.

Challenge:
New mobile devices emerge on the market continuously. Not only you
have to ensure great user experience from the beginning, the app
should be fit for new devices with new OS versions, better screens,
and performance capabilities. Your software is easily adapted to
different sizes and resolutions, aspect ratios, and orientations.

Opportunity:
Functional strength and performance of JavaScript/HTML5-based apps is
already at an advanced level. They incorporate native capabilities of
mobile platforms. They consume less energy on mobile devices. HTML
and CSS obviously aren't going away in the observable future.

Challenge:
You must look for a company that has experience in the multiplatform.
They know how to create software with inherently optimized
performance, and what tools to use. Most of the talk about bad
performance of cross-platform apps appear owing to poorly built
examples with non-optimized DOM structures, unsuitable image scaling,
bad handling of long lists of items, etc. What's the result of the
right approach? The smooth UX that your users are looking for.

Opportunity:
Multiplatform apps can be both deployed/viewed in browsers as web
apps and distributed/monetized as native ones. They are easier
deployed and have decent support for cloud services.

Challenge:
Advantages and flexibilities of one mobile OS may be missing on
another one. The more complex your business logic is, the harder it
is for multiplatform implementation and integrations.

Opportunity:
There's plenty of cross-platform frameworks, plugins, modules, and
toolkits that extend the functionality of your software. Some of
them, like RAD.js by MobiDev, allows to enhance performance as well.

Challenge:
Every time a feature is added/modified in native development tools,
it has to be reflected in the cross-platform ones, and the code of
your app will have to be adjusted as well. Such updates for the
multi-platform lag behind those for the native.

Opportunity:
The multiplatform is a good solution for enterprise and BYOD. Your
employees will be easier to satisfy than any niche of the global user
audience.

Challenge:
Limited graphics and 3D capabilities. That's why for most mobile
games native development is currently the only way.

We
can't deny the fact that major players on the market can afford to
stick to developing separate native apps for every platform. But in
the case of startups that only start growing, multiplatform software
can be the best place to start. And if you need a technical specialist for your own project, please contact us and we'll be glad to consult you.